School Notes: Jackson School of Global Affairs
November/December 2026

New center will focus on peacebuilding

On September 16, the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs announced the establishment of the Center for Peace and the Global Good. The center will support faculty, visiting fellows, scholars, and students working on a wide range of issues, such as peacebuilding, human rights, global health, conflict resolution, peace and reconciliation, social entrepreneurship, and the applied principles of strategic nonviolence. School leaders say that, at a time of deep global uncertainty and conflict, the center is expected to position the school at the forefront of scholarship and practice dedicated to building a more just and stable world, equipping rising leaders with the vision, knowledge, and practical skills to build that world and to lessen, or even avert, future conflict. Its launch was made possible by a transformational gift from John ’67 and Susan Jackson. “This gift gives Yale Jackson the resources to turn scholarship on peace and the global good into work that shapes policy and practice, not just the academic conversation,” said Jim Levinsohn, Charles W. Goodyear Professor of Global Affairs and dean of the Jackson School. Bonnie Weir, a senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson School, will serve as the center’s inaugural executive director.

Podcast explores moral questions of decency

A new podcast has launched titled The Permanent Questions, produced by The Atlantic with support from Yale and hosted by Yale Jackson Presidential Senior Fellow David Brooks. Each week, Brooks speaks with leading intellectuals about matters of enduring human concern—questions like how to find purpose, confront mortality, and repair a broken community. Recorded on Yale’s campus, it explores the moral, social, and philosophical underpinnings of human decency, with a particular focus on the role institutions play in shaping communities and ideologies. Brooks became a Presidential Senior Fellow in February, part of a university initiative to foster respectful debate and bridge the academy with society at large.